One Could Do Worse
by Libertine Past
Summary: When one door closes for Cole and Olivia, another opens.


**A/N:** This story takes place around episode 120.

* * *

**One Could Do Worse**

_1997_

Olivia has night sickness.

It seems stronger under tonight's moon, and she doesn't want to think about the letter formed in the sky by a crescent.

With her other children, pregnancy was textbook,_ de jure,_ just like their father. The sickness was as punctual as morning court, with a swift outcome. Now it lingers, dry and unresolved. Now it always comes in darkness, the favorite cloak of thieves, forcing her to remember that this baby could be of a different origin.

She finds hope where she can, even in the grueling hours. She has to, or she'll lose her mind. These nights feel like playing Chopin in the dark. Melancholy, haunting, but this child is still her work of art, _her_ madness.

She isn't in the master bath directly off of her bedroom. It's one far down the hall, far from Gregory's sensitivity to her sounds.

She went to a guest bath, remembering not to close the door all the way. It always locks itself, and from the outside. It's one of those things that goes unfixed in a house, whether a bungalow or a mansion. There are always much bigger problems. It's a lovely little bath, albeit narrow. A small chandelier, gold fixtures, a small shower stall.

Just mind the door.

She's lucky she did_,_ in her state of preoccupation. She doesn't look in the mirror as she grips the sink with white-knuckled hands. Their bony plea makes her seem more delicate than strong. A memory fills her blood, and as if the child sympathizes, the nausea fades.

* * *

Cole crept through Caitlin's window around nine, just before the alarm system went on. Cait was splayed across her entire bed, with no intention of sharing it with anyone. He took off his shirt and put on a pair of black pajama pants he'd stowed away in her drawer. When he climbed into the bed, the tow-headed creature snorted. Muttered. Swatted him away, unawakened and unmovable. He sighed, knowing his place at the moment…a bassinet-sized portion of the fitted sheet.

Hours later, just as he sank into a twitchy half-sleep, he fell on the floor.

He lay there, looking up for a beat or two. Then, an urge pinched him. Like everyone else, an intruder is mostly made of water.

Some of his strangest stories start with needing to use the bathroom in a place he broke into.

He roams the hall, asking for trouble.

Olivia is standing in near-darkness, looking into the three-way mirror above the sink. She jumps when Cole's face enters the left mirror, with a gasp that could crack the beveled glass.

He doesn't startle easily, but scaring her scares him. The floor feels uneven under his bare feet. She stands with her hand to her chest like Venus on the half shell, fumbling for breath.

He isn't wearing a shirt, and this is more frightening than if he'd popped up in a black ski mask.

"Jesus," he says in the doorway, trying not to let his eyes wander down her robed body. Lace peeks out where her hand is plastered, and he can't help noticing her proximity to lotions, oils, sallts- the whole room is a suggestion of skin. "What are you doing?"

"What am _I_ doing?" she whispers, flicking on the light. "What are you even doing in my house?" She throws up her hand before he can answer. "Never mind…at least there's a bright side. Caitlin was so dead exhausted from her finals, I doubt she obliged you this evening," she rubs in hard.

His averted eyes are the only answer needed. "It doesn't matter. We have the rest of our lives for that."

"Oh God, I hope there's Scope around- my mouth just got hideously saccharine."

"Well, why don't you go find some in your very own on-suite master bathroom?_" _he stresses. "Why are you all the way down here?"

"Why did you just _walk in_, couldn't you see this room was taken? _Occu-pato?_"

"The door wasn't closed, the light wasn't on, and you still haven't answered my question."

"Cole, go throw your weight around to someone who'll listen, like some glassy-eyed stuffed animals? It would be none of your damn business if I put on a tulle skirt, did a cannonball out my window and relieved myself in the pool."

Even with a face as bewildered as he's wearing, there's a hint of a smirk. "Thanks for the mental picture. _Not."_

She rolls her eyes. "I know you haven't been in America for a few years, but you're dating yourself with that one."

"You know what? As long as we're here, I might as well use the quiet and privacy to my advantage…to make a few things clear."

There's something about his expression at that moment that distracts her from the door locking behind him.

"Ohgodf," she moans into her hand. She quietly shrieks into her palm again, her other fist pounding the bathroom counter.

"What," he growls through his teeth.

"That door. Locks itself. From the outside," she says between wriggling her hands in the air.

He turns around and manhandles it, yanking and jiggling, the knob barely giving a millimeter. "Why didn't you warn me _before_ I closed it?" he hisses.

"I...just assumed you knew. It's an unspoken thing in this house."

"One of many. Too cheap to get it fixed, that's what he is," he mutters, thinking aloud.

"Gregory's frugality is the least of your problems right now. Look at us," she says, pacing the narrow room with an iron grip on her robe. "This is so inappropriate. We're dead!"

"Not if I climb out the window and pretend I was never here." He stops to survey his "exit" in disgust. "Great. Just _great._ A glass block window that doesn't open?"

"Well, I am _truly _sorry, Cole. When we converted this closet into a loo in 1983, I didn't stop to have a premonition about this. How about I just stick your head in the toilet and flush, and see where the plumbing takes you?"

"OK…time out. Just hold on a second. I don't think well in enclosed spaces. Or ones full of _hot air_, for that matter." He turns away from her, his heart pumping fiercely in his chest. There's not even enough width for two people to pace. "Wait. Isn't Tiffany's room a few doors down?"

Olivia nods cautiously, unsure of where this is going.

"Bingo," Cole smiles. "Completely neutral party who won't give a shit how or why this happened."

"Oh, believe me, she'll take note, in her street smart little way. She'll use it as leverage to stay in this house forever!"

"Well, you either have an extended homeless houseguest, or you find your own ass out on the strand. Your choice." He approaches the door. "Hey Tiffan-"

He doesn't get to call out another syllable because Olivia thrusts her hand over his mouth, knocking him against the wall as he lets out a smothered protest.

"Don't. You. Dare," she whispers, inches from the sudden shift in his eyes.

He doesn't expect to be remotely _turned on_ by this until it hits him: she also muzzled him in her bed, on the night of the Belarus party.

She found his volume to be risky, even when an entire floor separated them from cocktail hour.

This one swoop of her hand has jogged her own memory of the heated moment, too.

Her arm to his bare chest, she feels his drummed up excitement...the thinness of the space between her mouth and his, her hand becoming the only barrier. He isn't sure he wants to speak. His lips are warm on her palm, and the air from his nose is quick against her knuckles.

They release their opposing pressure at the same time, their eyes everywhere else in the narrow room. "Don't call for anyone, do you understand?" Olivia shivers. She picks up a curling iron on the counter. "Or I swear, I will clamp this hot barrel somewhere you won't soon forget."

"Right, because _that_ wouldn't make any noise," he sighs.

"Only one that Spike would hear," she says, her blue eyes stoning him.

"Can you just answer me this? If there was something...inappropriate going on in here, why would we call for someone to let us out? The more we do nothing, the more suspicious it gets."

"You see, that's where you're wrong. _No one_ is ever going to find out about this, or have a moment to reflect on anathing that might've occurred, because the _thief,_" she says, gesturing over him like a deranged Price is Right model, "is going to pick damn the lock."

"Oh, I get it. It's okay to flex those skills when it suits you? See, here's the thing. I use something for that called _tools, _and I don't take them with me during a midnight piss."

She digs through the bathroom counter's drawers. "Give me a break. This room has a treasure trove of potential lock-picking….gadgetry! Nail files, hairpins, tweezers! See, look. I feel like Q from the James Bond films." She fans them out in her hands. "Choose something! Today_,_ please?"

"Olivia? This is what's called a knob-set lock. The whole knob has to be removed with a power screwdriver, not _floss sticks? _But thanks. I guess I'll take any vote of confidence I can get."

She tosses everything into the sink. "It wasn't a vote of confidence. It was an overestimation of your prowess. A common mistake, I'm sure."

"You know, there's no need to get all huffy. I actually think your Hollywood frame of reference for B & E is kind of...cute."

She pinches the V of her robe tightly. "If not understanding your world is cute, I aspire to be Hello bloody Kitty." She sits on the floor. "God...everyone was putting phones in their baths in the 80's -why didn't we join the trend?"

"_Who_ would you call right now?"

"Bette."

"And explain how that wouldn't alert the whole house about this situation?"

"Belt up, will you? She knows the alarm code. She could sneak in and free us. We have a pact for favors late at night," she sighs.

_Helping you hide other men,_ he finishes in his head, something clawing at his stomach. At least he isn't stuffed in a hope chest right now. "Look…I don't want Caitlin or Gregory to find us in a compromising position any more than you do, but I could care less about Tiffany. Let's just call for her? I can't think of anything else right now."

She stands up. "You'll be wishing you tried, after she tells Sean who tells Caitlin who tells-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." He takes a deep breath, his arm against the wall. "It'll have to wait anyway, because there's a more pressing issue at hand."

"What?" she frowns in alarm.

"The reason I came in here to begin with still stands, and now I _really_ have to pee."

"No! Just hold it."

"Until when?"

"Until I don't have to be in the same room while you're…exposing yourself!"

"So don't look! Don't you think you're being a little bit immature?"

"I am _not,"_ she says, then bites her lip at her choice of words.

"Let me put it this way. The longer I wait, the more…noticeable it's gonna get? And then good luck spinning some innocent explanation if someone comes in and sees the front of my pants."

"Oh my God, you're right. Okay, fine. As long as you don't start _talking_ while you go." She turns her back to him and stands deathly still.

His own face reddens a little too, at the golden anniversary intimacy of all this. "It's nothing you haven't seen before, Warden," he says as he urinates.

"Please don't talk."

"How many times am I allowed to shake it afterwards? Just thought I'd run that by you."

"Shut up_,_" she tries not to snicker.

He closes the toilet and flushes. "I might be having delusions from captivity, but that actually sounded a little bit like a laugh."

She turns around abruptly and they bump into each other. She braces herself with her hands to his forearms, and a small gasp. It takes her a moment to speak as her eyes envelop his like glycerine. "Y-you know, you were right, I suppose the girl is our only hope, better her finding us than Gregory-"

Before she can say anything more, they hear music. It's not loud, but it's filling Tiffany's room with the sultry perfection of an R & B ballad.

"No, no," Olivia shivers. "Oh, ew. Sean must be in there. Even if they hear me call, they'll pretend they didn't, and my squawking will just end up waking Gregory."

Cole sighs. "Well, it's not a lost cause. Maybe when they're done…studying…they might want to…use the water in here," he tries to phrase delicately for the cringing mother.

"Thank you, Cole, that makes want to wash my mind out with bleach _slightly_ less. It wouldn't matter, anyhow. They'd open the door, I'd throw up, and we still wouldn't have a logical explanation for why we're in here together_."_

"Then we brainstorm."

"Smashing. We've got the atmosphere, now all we need are the brains."

"I've already got an idea. Sleepwalking," he says, gesturing animatedly.

"You know, the only way that would sound worse is if you did jazz hands while you said it. Oh wait. You _did._"

"Just let me explain, OK? I've done it before. When I first got back to the States, I had this hankering for beef jerky. It was all I could think about, so I went down to the corner store to get some…or so I thought. When I came to, I was standing at the desk in the Seabreeze lobby, chewing on a pen that exploded. Had blue ink all over my teeth, lips, everything. Remember Sergei, the night manager? He was like, 'You owe me for that pen.' What a jackass."

Olivia, having pictured the whole scene, is tangled in a chuckle that grows until she covers her mouth to stifle the wheezing laughter. "You were the…you were the one eating a writing implement, and _he's_ the arse?" She catches her breath as he shoots her a look.

"My point is, that night was the real deal, so we wouldn't even technically be lying. So this is it: You were in here when I came wandering in, dazed out of my head, and I closed the door behind me. Done."

"Maybe you should smile after you tell it. Dimples are equated with honesty."

"They are?"

"Mhm, though I don't know why. They're just a muscle deformity. Nobody goes around trusting people with, say, claw foot. It's really not fair."

He shakes his head, chuckling, stirred by this glowing entity of silk and wit before him. _She's a caution_, he finds himself thinking, one of those old-fashioned terms ingrained in him by his grandmother. He remembers power outages when he was young- the unexpected fun he'd have, and his disappointment when the lights came back on. He dreads feeling the the same way when the locked door opens. "Do you trust me?"

When he asks that, something about him reminds her of Aladdin- hand extended- on a magic carpet. She looks away. "In what respect?"

"My cover. Do you think it'll work?"

"It's satisfactory," she shrugs. "I mean, aside from the fact that you'renot even supposed to be spending the night here," she can't help throwing in.

"Well, don't think I haven't noticed the glaring double standard for M.C. Sean and his live-in girlfriend," he says, thumbing at the door.

"It's different. I don't know why we're more protective of our daughter. You just turn a blind eye and let a boy fend for himself. You just do."

"We're not always that good at fending for ourselves," he says with a distant look.

"I guess we have plenty of prison time on our hands for a sociological debate on all this."

They sigh in unison, sitting on the floor, settling in for a long wait. Wishing there was something to look at besides each other. You can't exactly stare at yourself in the toilet handle or study the light fixture for too long.

She says, "You never know. We could come out of this as two forever-changed individuals with a whole new perspective on the universe."

"OK, now I _know_ you watch too much TV," he chuckles. "There's always...good old-fashioned fun." Her marble eyes worry that he's hinting at something of the Adam and Eve persuasion. "No, I mean like, c_harades?_"

Olivia laughs a bit, scratching the back of her neck. "Oh. Well, you don't want to see how incensed I get when someone doesn't understand what I'm miming," she sighs. "Now just imagine my shock that young Cole was a fan of the simple things in life."

"Surprise, surprise. Swordsman of sticks, baker of mud, _swinger of birches."_

"_One could do worse_," Olivia quotes back softly, to a spark in his eyes and a lingering silence in their glances.

"A hell of a lot worse."

"...Cole, in all seriousness…I'm glad that despite what Del did, your childhood had…happiness."

It takes him a moment to blink himself into a response. "...Yeah…of course, I…I did. There was a lot of happiness…stuff that most kids would die for. Huge Sunday brunches, a horse stable, tons of land to explore…but, it always seemed like trouble was out to get me."

"How so?"

"I dunno, I was pretty disaster prone. All of a sudden, I'd feel like I had no control over my body, and _bam._ Knowing what I know now, it's like…fate was shaking me and saying, 'Wake up, this isn't real, it's all wrong.' The happiness…it survived, to a point. When I was a teenager, trouble came and just never left."

"Meaning girls?"

"_Pfff_. I was a little awkward compared to my father."

"Oh, so there was only one girl coming to dinner at a time, as opposed to three?" Olivia smiles.

Cole just shakes his head.

"Well, I'm sure there were a few co-ed sleepovers that would make Sean feel positively Quaker." When he doesn't answer, her brow furrows. He's looking into the wall, his expression glazed and detached, almost like he's sleepwalking right now. "Cole…? Are you alright?"

She notices his hands are nearly shaking until he speaks again. "…I'm fine, it's just…" The pause that follows surrounds Olivia, her eyes falling on the motion of his throat. "It's not that there weren't girls. Relationships, using the term lightly as hell. But, not in that house, not that creaky room. Too many painful memories."

"…of what?"

"A corrupt housemaid…and I was pretty young."

"Cole, no…" she shudders.

He nods. "Grandmother's favorite help. 'As dependable as she is beautiful,' she used to say. Her name was Franziska. I know I looked older than I was, but…let's just say she schooled me in some things I wasn't ready for. Lost my virginity when I was…I dunno, thirteen. Every time, she just got dressed and went back to polishing the silver. When she went about her day, she completely ignored me. Not even a glance. Then at night…she would come in my room. She would tell me she loved me, but in German, the words just sounded like noise."

Olivia isn't sure how long her hands have been over her mouth, so firmly her face hurts. "Cole…what she did was a crime. Manipulative and devious and sick! Did you tell your grandmother and get her sacked? Arrested?"

He shakes his head. "She went back to Austria, she wasn't around for long. Besides…I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to feel. Lucky, ashamed, grown up? I guess what stuck was the shame. She always made me believe that I was the one who'd lead her on, that I had started it. Grandmother worshipped me, and…I never could've talked to her about _that. _So, I just put away all my comic books and science kits, stopped climbing trees…just lived life on fast forward until graduation."

Olivia's eyes are damp and her teeth bear down hard on the soft flesh of her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't dwell on it. I don't give her memory the time of day anymore."

"It still hurts you," she swallows.

He shrugs. "Well…I had this squeeze in Monte Carlo last year, who decided to surprise me by dressing up like a maid. Let's just say a woman expecting a hot night gets pretty put off by a guy reacting with a_ breakdown_. I don't think I've ever heard a door slam so fast."

Olivia wrings her hands, her indignant breathing puffing out quicker. "...make that _two_ women from this story I'd like to strangle to death!"

"Olivia…" He can feel her compassion swelling his way, and it compels him brush her hair back from her eye.

She turns away from him on her knees, her shoulders heaving in distress, her face in her hands.

This is what truly ruined him- not the old woman. Juliana had learned from her mistakes with his father. She had been so kind. She'd been loving enough to fill the voids of both Elaine and AJ. An awkward child with comic books and science kits, a clumsy boy who read Frost and found solace in his imagination wasn't on a fast track to being an international gigolo. He just wasn't.

It was _this_ that lead to the stealing and the play-acting and the false engagements. Franziska was the original thief, Cole the original mark.

She breaks down then, sobbing low. His story, the pregnancy hormones, and the endless slow jams down the hall have all done her in.

"Olivia…?" Cole says softly, his hands on her trembling shoulders. "Hey, hey, it's alright. I'm sorry I upset you."

"No. I'm glad you did," she cries. "You don't deserve the way I've been tonight, and I needed to be knocked down a few pegs."

"That's not why I told you at all. I don't really know why I did, I've…never told anyone about that. Stuck in here like this, i-it just slipped out."

"No, it _didn't_, Cole. You bled it out to me, after I railed against you for using the toilet! I always try to paint you as less than a human being, don't I?"

He chuckles a little. "I'm the one who charged in here on you like a bull, and you let me have it. You're a caution, Olivia. It's one of the things I…" He knows that sentence can't end well. "It's just one of those things. Let's not talk about depressing stuff. We could…try to think of another way out of here, or another cover?"

"I don't care anymore," she says, sniffing and breathing more evenly. "It's only a door."

They sit beside each other on the floor, his arm around her, his fingers kneading her shoulder. Despite everything, there's an innocence about him that no one has stripped away. She looks at his strong hand and remembers a day very long ago, when its unborn imprint reached for her through Elaine's skin. _"I swear he knows your voice, Livia." _

After Elaine's child was gone, little OCD moments consumed Olivia. If she threw a paper into the rubbish and didn't miss, the boy was happy. If she washed her hair twice, the boy would be okay. Eventually it faded, until Del's murder brought back all the superstition. What if _everyone_ involved in the kidnapping was going to die? She tortured herself with this beyond all logic, clutching her own liquored heartbeat in fear.

Now he's holding her, his face heavy with pain of her making, and Olivia's fear of karma is gone.

But she wants to stay. She wants to give life to this child. This is the redemption that was chosen for her. It's never up to us.

She can't tell him about her part in the kidnapping, and probably never will. But, she's found a limb on that dark tree that she isn't afraid to fall from. "Cole, I'm pregnant," she whispers.

Her eyes closed the moment she said it, but she feels every bit of his reaction in the closeness and bareness of his body. "What?"

"That's why I was in this bathroom. I thought I was going to be sick, and I didn't want Gregory to hear me in the on-suite."

He makes a few sounds as he struggles for words. The room suddenly feels like the same bell jar it did at the very beginning. "How far along." He can't even raise the pitch of his voice to phrase it as a question.

"Since February…and so much happened then, with us _and_ Gregory and me."

"Have you been to the doctor…?" he asks, finding a little more control over the mess his voice has become.

"No, just took a test. That's why I kept going upstairs at the party for Vanessa Hart. I was waiting for the results and everyone kept interrupting me."

"I- I don't know what to…" He looks her over in a way that turns her completely to gooseflesh, and she realizes his hand is on her thigh. "…please tell me what to do."

"I don't expect anathing of you, how could I? I just want you to know, because…no matter whose child it is, a new life is always a sign that the world is kinder than we think."

"Olivia…"

"I want to give that feeling to you, Cole, because...you were my ray of moonlight in that grotto, when I couldn't bear another minute on earth. You make me smile...and see that nothing is ever hopeless. It's just _life_. When that part of you comes through, the part that's so honest and daft and true…I don't want to leave you, for hell or high water."

And it begins, with each of her words. The thinning of the air, the building pressure, the drifting tilt of his face. The fire. "That's the most…" he begins, but can't find the ending.

At least in his own mouth.

The kiss is hard and heavy and starving. Tongues, hands, heaving lungs. Here is everything they don't want Gregory and Caitlin to know about, everything they were afraid would happen since the moment the door closed. All of it in living, pulsating color, on a cold travertine floor. They stretch out on it as his hands part her robe, holding her fullness in the silk camisole underneath.

Cole almost drowned in the mansion pond at the age of five, and the memory of thrashing for the lilies at the surface, burbling his life away feels the same as needing to be inside Olivia. It's always been like that. It's not something you feel like you have the rest of your life for.

He unhooks the camisole with one flick of his wrist, and as he takes her nipple with a heavy thumb, she winces. He remembers why, placing a kiss on her lips so apologetic and awestruck of her condition. "Don't stop," she gasps, wanting him to cause her pain. He leans down to take the oversensitive nubs into his warm mouth- first these two, then trailing down to the time bomb of them all. A groan of absolute satisfaction leaves him as he watches the violent pleasure this gives her. His voice is forceful, but not loud, and she knows the real reason she covered his mouth on Belarus night. It was the _way_ he moaned, the way it came from deep inside him that frightened her.

She's not afraid of that unreserved passion anymore, knowing the terrible way he was broken in. She knows she's healed something in him- don't ask her how, but she has. She needs to feel his voice on her more than anything. "Don't hold back," she sighs in his ear, and he's sure he's going to die.

He's torn. He wants to tease her all over until her nerve endings fry, or seal the space between them now. He feels her prying down his boxers and pajama pants and growls softly at his decision. They roll across the narrow floor, joined at the mouth, until she twists him on top of her, watching the way his eyes blacken when he tries to wait, tries to just absorb her for a moment.

In the back of Olivia's mind, there's a vague awareness of her family in the house, the family that the exchange of the young man's life financed.

She takes him back.

She drags him to her lips as he enters her, feeling his tongue mimic the motion of his body. He tries to give himself to her patiently, to do all the things a monster taught him that women like. "Don't be gentle, Cole," she hisses. "Own me."

Those words unravel the last of his restraint. He drives himself home, hard, not even surrendering to a man's fear of hurting a baby. This child is as tough as nails, as unbreakable as whatever this night is made of. He's never climaxed from pure empathy of another person's sensations, feeling everything once for himself and once for her until it destroys him.

As they lie in the aftermath, he can only move one or two toes. If he could stand, he'd take her into the shower and make her break the towel bar as she gripped it in ecstasy.

She is laureled with content, her hair still curled up neatly at the ends. Even after a tryst, she still has the grace of Jackie Kennedy giving zealous tours of the White House. "I don't want the door to open," he whispers, kissing her deeply again.

She traces the outline of his features, taking special time with the dark indentations- black holes with their own gravitational pull.

She wonders if he's only a psychotic figment of her imagination, a puck created from her own self-hatred…to lure her away from her stolen life.

This moment is a part of her other life- her broken one- and it still feels stolen.

"…Cole, I…shouldn't have." She gathers her clothes in trembling hands, dressing herself in haste, and gives him his. "I meant evrathing I said…before. I swear I did. But, as more of…an embroiled friend."

Cole has never been called a "friend" by a woman before, especially not after what they just did.

An "embroiled friend" sounds like bad tourist cuisine, at that.

Still, he can't say he's shocked. This is Olivia: more beautiful than anything when she lets go, unable to face herself when she comes back down.

He pulls on his boxers and pants, and then, kneeling in front of her, kisses her hand. He has done so before- when, she doesn't remember- but it wasn't the typical "_Enchanté_" sort of peck then, either. Like then, it rumbles through the small bones of her hand, elevating what little soul she has.

She is so overpowering sometimes, taking him to the ground. The ribs that tip over Fred Flinstone's car come to mind, but a woman wouldn't appreciate that metaphor. "I guess I'm alone in feeling like it changed everything."

"Cole, we were just drowning our sorrows together, _again,_ there's nothing different about it."

"Oh, I'd say there are a ton of things different about it."

"A few…" she says, her hand unconsciously brushing her stomach, "but we can't ignore the meager _beginning _of this evening. You were lying in bed with Caitlin, answered the call of nature, and now this? Funny how the night moves, indeed!_"_

"You were lying in bed with Gregory and then…_'Own me?'"_

"W-Whatever I said during the sex is inadmissible! Besides, you didn't say a damn thing- anything coherent, at least."

"I know. I was too busy making love to you," he says, cornering her with his eyes.

She isn't sure how long it takes to respond. The painful blast of her heart makes her wonder how flat red paper could ever represent one. "Don't say that."

"How about this? _I'd like to get away from earth awhile, And then come back to it and begin over,_" he says, watching the bright spark of recognition in her eyes. "And I just did, baby."

From the way he quotes Frost, she knows it's not just something he does to beguile the well-read women of the world. It comes from so far down in his chest, she can imagine him swinging from those birches as this full grown man, and not looking a bit foolish.

"Cole…this is what you did. You sleepwalked into this bath, you paid for your bloody Slim Jim," she says, slapping down a toothbrush on the counter, "and then woke up in a nightmare. Trapped with your girlfriend's old mother, both barely dressed. You're mortified. Absolutely mortified. That's what happened. I…know we shared a lot…we turned this room in to a mad confessional booth, but it never should've gone past words."

She leans against the wall. Her white arm makes him think of the seagulls that get run over near Eisenhower Park, one wing sticking up in surrender.

Cole stands and leans on the sink. He looks up in the mirror and smoothes down his crazy hair- a visual representation of her pleasure, as her fingers clenched his skull. Then he rustles it back the way it was, unable to stand his reflection without it. He contemplates seeing Olivia jump in a pool wearing a billowing tulle skirt someday, or hearing that certain laugh over and over- the one when he told the story of Sergei's pen.

He won't.

He won't, but there has to be an easier way to live with that fact.

All of a sudden, an unlikely answer hits him, in the form of a slender bottle on the counter. _Almond Fancy® of London._ He couldn't put his finger on the scent he savored as he lost himself in her, until now.

Most men wouldn't be crazy enough to _stage_ a life-threatening situation to test someone.

He isn't most men.

He sits back down and clears his throat a few times, grasping at his neck.

"Did you put on some kind of…lotion, or something before I came in here?"

"Just a light oil, _why._ Should I have run that by you?" she asks with folded arms, trying to keep her misty eyes hardened.

He picks up the bottle, reading it with a gaping mouth. Showtime. "Nuts."

"Oh, am I? _Wound_ me, why don't you."

"No, nuts in this! A-and I basically just got a mouthful of it."

Of course it flashes through her mind: his lips and tongue up and down her body. Her countenance changes in an instant. "Don't tell me you're going to have some sort of anaphylactic reaction!"

Nurse Olivia to the rescue.

"Whatever you just said," he says, his hand to his chest, much like hers when he first laid eyes on her. "See what I mean? Disaster prone."

She surveys his whole face with a frantic touch. "No, you're not the disaster, I am. This is all because of me_. _All of it." She tears open the medicine cabinet, throwing things into the sink. "Benadryl, why isn't there any Benadryl? Dammit!"

"That would just take a chip of the edge off. It happens way too fast," he says, making his best rasping sounds.

"No, it won't. Lie down, it's alright, darling," she says, working so hard against her high-strung nature to be calm for him. She lowers him to the floor, cradling his head, her breathy "_darling_" like satin against his skin. "Don't panic. Concentrate on something pleasant, okay?" she says, as he looks dead in her eyes. "Swinging on those birches?"

"I can't," he says, keeping his eyelids at at half-mast to make them look swollen. "My throat…it's closing up."

"I'm calling for Gregory_,_" she says without any hesitation, a spark in her eyes when she squeezes his hand. They need anyone to just o_pen this goddamned door and _get a phone_…_but beyond all rationality, she needs her husband's strength to withstand what's happening to the other man.

"Olivia, no, he can't…know about this," he wheezes, tugging her hand as she gets up. "How are we gonna explain how I…in…gested your body oil? He's gonna know what we did. He'll figure it out."

She fuses her hand to his cheek, helpless and incensed. "So I'm supposed to just let you _die_ in here? Forget it!"

He pulls her back again. "I'll be uncon….unconscious by time the door's open. Tell him I locked you in, tried to rape you…you fought me off. Protect yourself, Olivia." The expression on her face at that brings real tears to his eyes.

She shakes her head. "Look at me," she says aimlessly- his eyes haven't moved. "I wouldn't repeat that filthy accusation to the _dog. _Don't you waste your energy worrying about _my_ fate." She kisses him and his shallow breathing chills her bones. "Cole?"

He holds her stomach, his next words unintelligible. He keeps his hand here, gasping like his throat is twig thin. The thought of losing this little family is the only inspiration needed for his performance.

"Gregory!" she screams, the irony not lost on Cole that this is the loudest sound this door has felt since it locked. "Gregory!" She lunges for the door, pounding and crying beyond all explanation. _"GREGORY, HELP!"_

Cole closes his eyes in the wake of his answer. _A reason to live. _ He hates making her believe that her embrace brought him to death's door, but he had to know.

She would risk Gregory's wrath for him, and she would never do that in the absence of love, if Cole and Olivia weren't carved into the same tree.

* * *

It's hard to explain what happens in the next few minutes. It largely resembles chickens with their heads cut off, chaos in all directions. Cole is so truly exhausted from his imaginary shock and a genuine lack of sleep, it all starts to blur. The bathroom door opens. Gregory yells. Olivia sobs. Sean asks Olivia angrily if Cole hurt her, Olivia says no. At some point, Caitlin- who wasn't even cognizant of Cole being in the house- is at his side. Her hair dusts his face, her stern warning of "You are _not_ leaving me, do you hear me? Not after all we've shared, all we've been through!"

He has to follow through with the charade, but when the EMT's shove an agonizing tube down his throat, he knows he's never taken a con this far in his life.

A new low, some would say, but he feels weightless.

A sedative kicks in, and as his eyes drift shut, he hears her voice. The last thing he sees is a pointillist image of her. He grasps for the precious dots, unsure if he ever reaches her. _Goodnight, Olivia._

As the ambulance tears down Ocean Avenue, Caitlin jumps into her car in her pajamas and tears after it. Gregory and Olivia dress in their bedroom, preparing to follow.

She waits for the inevitable. The moon is still a sharp crescent in the sky, uncovered by a single cloud. The silence between them is like an executioner's whistling as he prepares his tools.

"I've got to hand it to you, Olivia…" Gregory begins, pulling on his pants. "I never would've guessed."

"Guessed what?" she shivers.

"Of all the ways I thought of to get rid of Cole, I honestly never considered trapping him like a fly and poisoning him."

"_Poisoning?_-"

"Please. You can stop the act, Liv, Caitlin's gone. I'm so impressed. How exactly did you find out about his nutty Achilles heel?"

Olivia stares at her 'O' shaped mouth in the vanity mirror, the circle closing as she weaves her farce. "E-elaine spoke of it, at the restaurant…" She gains her momentum, the words taking on their own angry life. "You know, he thinks he's so boxing clever, sneaking in here, but a man who _sleepwalks_ shouldn't spend the night at the scene of the intrusion!"

"Sleepwalking…?" Gregory begins, as she searches his voice for disbelief, sweat beading on her brow. "I'm not surprised. Very common among deranged individuals."

"Indeed. Well, that was how I got stuck in the bath with him- he staggered in and shut that blasted door. I decided to use it to our advantage. I threatened to pretend to be his infamous affair in Sunset Beach. If he agreed to my demands, someone would open the door and simply find two people locked in a room. If not, there'd be a tableau that would be very difficult to explain away. Not that I _would_ have done so," she cringes, "but he was in no mood to call my bluff."

"Brilliant Olivia, just brilliant."

"But…that's when things went awry. After the tongue-lashing I gave him, he grumbled about needing an aspirin and...I put a few drops of Almond Fancy in his water cup. I don't know what came over me. I just knew I wanted him to suffer like I have since he came into our lives."

Gregory pulls her up from the vanity and places a congratulatory kiss on her lips. "I love the way you think."

She takes seconds on the kiss she just got, tasting the absolute thrill and admiration in his probing tongue, pushing back her welling tears. "But I didn't want to kill him. He took a turn for the worse so violently. That look of fear in his eyes is burned in my head."

"I can't fault you for a moment of weakness, Olivia, even though I can't relate," he grins. "I hate to tell you, but the damage is already done. He looked like he was seconds from cardiac arrest."

Olivia's arms are folded as she looks out the bay window, her nails digging little c's into her skin. "A young heart can take a lot of abuse." She feels a brief twitch deep inside, as subtle as the spasm of a person's lower eyelid when they're tired. She knows it's her baby, offering that respite from pain that he or she did earlier, like a pocket version of Cole.

Gregory wraps his arms around her from behind, unable to see the wilted expression on her face. The one thing she'll never find an explanation for is why these two men love her.

"Even if he pulls through, I doubt he'll be able to piece together a thing. Besides, I've seen that damn dog lick Cole's mouth on more than one occasion, and you never know what _contaminants_ Spike could've gotten into in the trash. I'll be sure to mention that to Caitlin. To her, it simply looks like we saved his life. We can't lose."

"Of course not."

"Tell you one thing," he smirks, with a lingering kiss on her mouth. "You're a nocturnal creature, Olivia. That's when you're at your best…in more ways than one."

"We'd best get going if we want to play the supportive parents. Let me just get a book for the waiting room."

"We should pick up something at the Java web on the way. I have the strangest craving for Pecan pie," he chuckles.

By force of habit, Olivia gets in the back seat of the car, but doesn't correct her mistake. "What," Gregory says. "You're not going to ride up front with me?"

"I'm tired and I just want to stretch out."

"Oh, I see what you're doing…making this a long night for me, looking at you spread out on the backseat alone?"

"Mhm," she says, her temple to the cool leather.

"Can barely see you down there."

_That's the point. _

And the breakdown comes. The tears are slow and scalding, her sniffs hidden by the sounds of the road. Nothing was ever easy for Cole Deschanel, despite his noble name. There were beasts and monsters and poisons everywhere, like a childhood story that should never be told too close to bedtime. She clutches her book to her chest, _The Collected Poems of Frost, _her heart threatening to break the volume's binding. Despite everything, she knows Cole is alive, because she feels a movement within her as gentle as the swaying of trees.

* * *

**FIN **

Author's note: All poetry quotes, and the title are Robert Frost. :)


End file.
